Chapter 12 There’s Always Time to Turn Back, But Which Way Is Back?
There’s Always Time to Turn Back, But Which Way Is Back?
If we drive the most direct way, it would take us just over two hours—but that means tollbooths and cameras that I want to avoid.
I feel it catch in my own throat as we hit the Golden Gate Bridge, a bridge to a world I try not to let myself think about.
But it comes crashing in, and I consider turning the car around.
I consider telling Bailey this is a mistake—that we need to stick to going back to Santa Cruz.
That we need to stick with my plan. Isn’t this crazy, to switch now?
Except that it’s also not crazy.
I turn to Bailey and I meet her eyes and I have faith it’s not crazy. Owen would never lead Bailey into crazy. After all this time, he would only be coming back if we needed him to help ensure the opposite.
Maybe believing that makes me sounds delusional. But it doesn’t matter how it sounds. It doesn’t matter how it sounds or how it looks or what it seems like.
Because that’s the thing about faith. Even if the world decides it looks crazy, it shows up for you in the moment that you need it most. The moment that you need faith to remind you that you know better.
That I know better.
This is when I keep going.
At 8:55 a.m., we pull into the parking lot at a restaurant in a small office park, half a mile from the Napa County Airport.
We get two large coffees and split a breakfast burrito. We park at the far end of the lot and eat on a bench, facing the morning sun.
At 9:30, we take everything out of the trunk, the duffels and backpacks, and lock the car. For the last time.
Then we start the walk to Napa County Airport.
The road is windy, mostly quiet and flat, and thankfully not very busy. A truck passes by us, a couple of cars. I’m glad that there isn’t much traffic to take notice of us—these two women walking with their bags on their backs, walking over train tracks, hugging the side of the dusty road.
But, even if they do notice us, it’s still the best option.
Even if our car isn’t directly traceable to us, we can’t leave it someplace where they might be looking for it.
And I can’t risk a taxi driver remembering the two women he dropped off at the small private airport. The two women who fit our description.
We round a corner, and suddenly the airport is visible, fifty feet ahead of us.
You could almost miss it. You could almost miss the whole airport if you didn’t know what you were looking for: a small building, a few makeshift bungalows.
And, in the distance, a construction site—where they are building out a new airport hub.
“This is it?” Bailey says.
“This is it.”
We walk up to the sky service bungalow, a black gate beside it, leading to the tarmac. But instead of walking into that bungalow, and the small reception area inside, I lead Bailey straight through the open black gate, straight out to the tarmac.
We pass several of the smaller planes, moving wordlessly in the direction of the farthest runway. On the edge of which is the largest plane.
A long-range jet. It’s big enough for twenty people, maybe more. But, apparently, it’s there for just us.
The boarding stairs are down. There are three people standing beneath them. Three people in uniform who I can’t make out just yet.
“Just follow my lead, okay?” I say.
Bailey nods. I can feel that she is nervous, so I take her hand and she lets me.
Then I keep walking us toward that large plane, with purpose, like this is something I’m used to doing. Like I’m familiar with this tarmac, with its rules, with planes waiting just for me.
“Can I help you?”
I hear a voice behind me, stopping me cold. We are a good fifty feet from the plane. I turn around to find a security guard in a golf cart. He is in his sixties in an orange vest with reflective stripes, a gun on his waistband.
I force my nicest smile—force myself to meet his eyes—to combat whatever suspicions he may be feeling.
“We’re just heading to nineteen R,” I say.
“Hop on. I’ll drop you.”
Bailey jumps in, a little too fast. “We’re all set. Thanks.”
His tilts his head, takes us in, suddenly suspicious. I look over at her and see her as he must—her skinny arms, balancing those heavy bags. Why on earth wouldn’t she want the help? Most people coming through here expected it.
“You seem a bit weighed down with those bags,” he says. “Let me drop you.”
“No,” she says. “All good.”
He nods, but he reaches for his radio, probably ready to call someone to check our IDs, to look further into what we’re doing here. He reaches for that radio on his holster. By his gun.
I move toward him.
“You know what?” I say. “My daughter here can speak for herself. I learned as soon as I turned forty, you don’t turn down a lift…”
The security guard gives me a small laugh, liking this joke. Liking the chance to be helpful. His hand leaves the remote and he reaches out to make room for my bags on the back seat of the golf cart.
I hop onto the golf cart, sit down next to him.
Bailey gives me a look and I meet her eyes, trying to convey to her that this is the best choice. The only choice. She reluctantly gets into the golf cart’s rear-facing row, holding her bag tightly on her lap.
The guard swings the golf cart back into drive, moving us in the direction of the apron, the large plane, takeoff.
“Where is today’s destination?” he asks.
“That’s a birthday surprise for the young lady behind you,” I say.
“Ah,” he says. “Lucky kid.”
“Not so much a kid anymore as she is quick to remind me…”
“Can you not talk about me like I can’t hear you?” Bailey says. She sounds surly, but I know she is leaning into what I’m doing here—adding this security guard to it. To our side.
“She sounds just like my two,” he says. “Just celebrated my youngest’s thirty-fifth. And let me tell you, I still see him as three years old.”
“I hear grandkids help?” I ask.
“More than anything.”
He offers me a smile and drives us the rest of the way to the plane in silence. I keep the smile plastered to my face, watching him. I don’t breathe though. I don’t breathe until we are off the golf cart again and standing by the plane’s boarding stairs.
The three people I saw from a distance are now a few feet from us, and visible to me: a flight attendant; a young pilot who I don’t recognize in his uniform; and the other pilot—slightly older—also in his uniform. This other pilot, who I do recognize.
Daniel.
Daniel, who moves toward me. “Ms. Roberts,” he says. “Always nice to see you.”
He reaches out his hand to shake mine—somewhere between formal and cordial.
Somewhere between knowing me and working for me.
And it occurs to me that he is trying to strike a balance—to convey that we’ve been here several times before, boarding a private plane, on a chartered flight I have hired him to pilot for me.
Daniel motions toward the flight attendant. “Sally will be taking care of you today,” he says. “And this is my copilot, Ryan.”
The younger pilot, Ryan, gives us a nod and walks on board. Sally stays by Daniel’s side.
“Thank you for having your assistant send over the passports,” Daniel says. “That expedited everything, and we should be ready to get going shortly.”
Sally hands me the passports, and I force a smile. I don’t dare look at Bailey, who is keeping her eyes down. Bailey who knows it wasn’t us who sent passports anywhere. Bailey who, like me, is wondering not only where these passports were sent over from, but also what the passports even say.
Last name Roberts, apparently.
“After you,” Daniel says.
He smiles and turns toward the stairs. He motions for Bailey and me to follow Sally onto the plane.
I let Bailey take the lead. I follow her up the stairs and into the main cabin. A gorgeous main cabin: a couch to our right, four plush chairs around a dining table on the left side, a bar area behind that.
Bailey turns back toward me, and I can see it in her eyes. Despite the strangeness of all of this, she is still wooed by it. She has never been on a private plane before. I have been on a few with clients, but nothing like this—not a full-size jet of this magnitude.
“Bananas,” Bailey mouths.
I nod back. I know.
Then I turn toward Daniel. He stands at the front of the cabin, Sally preparing a tray of drinks behind him in the galley.
“As I’m guessing you might remember, Ms. Roberts, flying regulation calls for two pilots on board if you are entering international airspace, so Ryan will be joining us for the duration.”
International air space. A knot constricts in my chest. Where in international airspace?
But Daniel shakes his head—quickly, almost imperceptibly. It’s as if he is warning me not to ask any questions. Questions he can’t answer because Ryan may hear. Or Sally. Or someone else entirely.
“We’ll be stopping for fuel at Teterboro, but I don’t anticipate we’ll need to deboard during that process. I’ll certainly let you know if that changes…”
Daniel stops himself there, not saying the rest. He doesn’t say out loud what I hear in his pause: If we do have to deboard, this could get more complicated. This international destination we are supposed to be heading toward potentially derailed.
“Any questions for me, just let Sally know.”
A million, I want to say. A million questions.
“None I can think of,” I say.
“Very good. Wheels up in ten.”
Then Daniel heads into the cockpit, closing the door behind him. Bailey and I stare at each other silently.
But I feel Sally’s eyes on me, watching me. So I start to move—the way I would move if any of this were normal, if settling in were actually an option.
I drop our bags on the couch and then take a seat at the table, Bailey sitting down across from me. I click on my seat belt, motion for Bailey to do the same. I reach across the table to squeeze her hand, to try and help her relax, just as Sally places a large cheese board in front of us.
“I’ve got a few pre-takeoff bites here for you to enjoy,” she says. “Can I get y’all something to drink?”
I shake my head. “We’re fine. Thank you.”
“Great, then just settle in.”
This is when I look up. I look up and notice it on the front wall. There is a map with the flight plan on it. A little plane icon, our little plane apparently.
There’s a map of America. The Atlantic Ocean. Europe. And the twelve hours and fifteen minutes we are about to embark on, airborne. Flying from APC to LBG.
LBG. It takes me just a second to process it.
LBG is the airport code for Le Bourget.
A small, private airport that I’m not unfamiliar with.
In Paris.